News

TravelCenters upgrades RoadKing kiosks

September 4, 2004

WESTLAKE, OHIO -- TravelCenters of America (TA) has completed an upgrade of its RoadKing Club loyalty kiosk program, adding new features and the capability to accept bills and loyalty cards.

The kiosk, tied to the truck stop company's driver loyalty program, is available at 151 TA locations nationally.

TA said the upgrade included the addition of MEI bill acceptors, Mag-Tek Inc. magnetic stripe readers, and a PCI serial port card. Additional memory was also added to each kiosk. The magnetic stripe reader was created for the RoadKing Club's new loyalty cards.

New software features include an Automatic Shower System, part of the loyalty club's free shower program. The system gives drivers entry codes to access the truck stop's shower area, and informs each driver on wait times at the shower.

The upgrade took two weeks and was coordinated by Apunix Computer Services, which developed the RoadKing Club kiosk program for its September, 2000, launch. During the upgrade, each kiosk was shut down for around two to three hours. Apunix and TA reported that fewer than 10 kiosks were down for longer lengths of time.

TA officials said the RoadKing Club had 367,400 active members through early September. The program currently averages 64 users per day per kiosk.